NBA: Chicago Bulls upset Miami Heat in Game 1

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Nate Robinson was spitting blood in the first half, then delivered the deepest cuts of the night in the final moments. And the Chicago Bulls reminded the Miami Heat that no one in the NBA plays them any tougher.

Robinson scored 27 points, Jimmy Butler added 21 points and a career-high-tying 14 rebounds, and the visiting Bulls beat Miami 93-86 on Monday night in Game 1 of the teams’ Eastern Conference semifinal series. The team that snapped Miami’s 27-game winning streak in the regular season — the second-longest in NBA history — found a way to topple the champs again, this time ending a run of 12 straight Heat victories overall.

“I’ve played on some tough teams,” Robinson said. “But this one, there’s something a little different, something special about this group.”

A seven-point deficit midway through the fourth wasn’t enough to doom the Bulls, who finished the game on a 10-0 run in the final 1:59. And to think, the Bulls weren’t anywhere near full strength. Kirk Hinrich was out again with a calf injury. Luol Deng isn’t even expected to rejoin the team until Tuesday, after dealing with an illness apparently so severe that a spinal tap — and other tests since — were needed to rule out things like meningitis.

Miami was outscored 35-24 in the fourth.

“There’s no excuses,” said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, whose team had not played in more than a week. “We’re not making any excuses for time off or anything else.”

If anyone could have made excuses, it was Robinson. He needed 10 stitches, five in his lip and five more inside his mouth, to close a nasty cut that came when he dived for a loose ball with LeBron James and struck his head on the court late in the first half.

And then not only did he play the whole second half, he scored 24 points in those 24 minutes, including the last seven points that finished the job for Chicago.

Thunder: Derek Fisher was fined $5,000 by the NBA for flopping in Game 5 of Oklahoma City’s first-round playoff series against Houston.